Posts Tagged ‘experiential learning’
Building a Sustainable Future City
A group of gifted students, who I have in my classroom for several years, have been building sustainable cities for a number of years as part of their SDGs education, see:
- Building a Sustainable City https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2022/04/22/building-a-sustainable-city
- Creating a Sustainable City (#SDG 11): A Collaboration Between NM Gifted Elementary Students and PA 10th Graders https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2023/02/12/creating-a-sustainable-city/
Future City Competition
I knew about the Future City Competition for a while, and was waiting until my students reached 6th grade, the minimum age/grade allowed, to enter.
Future City is a project-based learning program where students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future. Keeping the engineering design process and project management front and center, students work in teams to ask and answer an authentic, real-world question: How can we make the world a better place? Teams spend approximately four months creating cities that could exist at least 100 years in the future. Each city must incorporate a solution to an annual design challenge. This year, teams will design a city completely powered by electricity generated from sources that keep your citizens and the environment healthy and safe (https://futurecity.org/).
Below is 2023-24 Program Handbook:
Hydropolis
There were three main students and three other students who helped with the construction of their city. Here are the highlights:
Our future city, Hydropolis, is a floating civilization powered entirely by electricity. The city spends all of its time on the water, but it has four designated clearings along North, Central, and South America. It travels along the Pacific coastline, stopping at stations in Alaska, Oregon, Mexico Chile to retrieve fresh food and trade with the locals. Our city is running on hydroelectric power, including tidal energy and waterwheels, as well as windmills and solar power. Windmills are an appropriate energy source because there is no blockage of any kind on the ocean. It is a flat surface, so therefore, wind can move freely in any direction for many miles. Solar power is also a good source of energy when the sun is out.
Lego Model
Following their conceptualization of the future city, they created a Lego model. This activity was influenced by https://www.takeactionglobal.org/lego-build-the-change-institutes/ and https://buildthechange.discoveryeducation.com/player/51e7ecf7-441d-4650-bc89-4554b65dbfcf?back=9c85b368-8745-40d9-bfa3-304486639915 and
The Essay
They were required to write a MLA-formatted essay that described their city and needed to include references to support their ideas:
Informational Poster Board
They took their highlights and added images for a poster board that was part of their competition poster board.
The Presentation
All teams, about 25 in total, were judged by Los Alamo Lab and Intel scientists in the facility’s classrooms – the only people allowed were the room were the students and judges. The top five teams were invited to present again in the auditorium to an audience of another panel of judges, parents, and students. (Note: Almost are their materials were recycled/recyclable. I, as their teacher, offered a few suggestions/a little assistance but almost everything was completed the students.)
Here is their presentation:
National Standards
NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS
- 3-5-ETS1-2: Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
- Obtain and combine information to describe that energy and fuels are derived from natural resources and their uses affect the environment.
COMMON CORE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.2: Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.3.4 Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.8.7 Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
Reflection
- It was an amazing experience for the students. Although I mentioned a few key standards above, there were so many cross-curricular standards addressed, which I love, strive for, and discuss in All Lessons Should Be Interdisciplinary https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/all-lessons-should-be-interdisciplinary/.
- Key to their success was teamwork. This is always one of my working goals with my gifted students. Gifted students sometimes have trouble doing working in groups. Needless to say, they struggled with this aspect. Projects requiring teamwork often end up with one or two students doing most of the work. This wasn’t the case for this project. Individual strengths emerged.
- Too often students do “one and done” projects at school, projects that are a few hours in duration at best. This project took months to complete which mimics workforce projects.
- One student was very mathematical oriented. As such, he often has difficulty verbally expressing his ideas. It was magical watching him orally present his part during the judging.
micro:bit Projects Coded with Python
I have a strong emphasis with a few groups of my gifted students in integrating physical computing into my instructional activities. I’ve discussed the benefits of physical computing in Scratch and Makey Makey Across the Curriculum.
As I have my students in my classes for several years during their 2nd through 6th grade education, I start teaching them block coding using MakeCode and Scratch in the early grades. As such, this year, due to a desire to advance their skills, I’ve begun having the students use Python for the micro:bit to combine physical computing and learning Python.
Python is an excellent first text-based language to learn. Its instructions and syntax are based on natural language, making code easy to read, understand and modify. As well as being widely used in education, it’s used in industry, especially in the areas of data science and machine learning. Python is not just used by software developers, but also by people working in fields as diverse as medicine, physics and finance. Python on the BBC micro:bit brings the benefits of physical computing to students aged 11-14, learning programming fundamentals through text-based coding: immersive, creative experiences for students that help build engagement and knowledge (https://microbit.org/get-started/user-guide/python-editor/).
Standards Addressed
ISTE Standards for Students
- Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
- Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
- Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
- Create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
Next Generation Science Standards
- Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
- Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
Math Standards
- Measure angles in whole-number degrees using a protractor. Sketch angles of specified measure.
- Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.
Here are some of the projects they’ve completed:
Spoon Race Using the micro:bit Python Data Logger
The Egg and Spoon race is a game where a player carries an object (like an egg) across some distance without it falling out of a holder. In the case of the Egg and Spoon, the player must carefully walk with an egg held in a spoon. The egg must remain in the spoon until the player crosses the finish line. The egg can easily roll out of the spoon so the player needs skill and patience to balance the egg until finishing the race (https://makecode.microbit.org/examples/egg-and-spoon).
The micro:bit can be programmed to record data about how much shake occurs during the race. The winner is the one with the least amount of shake. See more about it at https://microbit.org/projects/make-it-code-it/python-wireless-data-logger/.
Thanks, Katie Henry and Jacqueline Russell, for this!
The code – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gsc1ghanyL7CvXV6HQXnzJRcLVkFN3NU/view?usp=sharing.
FYI – the students absolutely loved this!
micro:bit Pal Coded with Python
The micro:bit is coded to make a pal. It is customized with different images and the built-in speaker to make it even more fun with its expressive sounds (music, expressive sounds, and speech).
The code – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p8RIGQIGTLloAqXwjswdxlNFvkjDuF3_/view?usp=sharing.
micro:bit Warmer-Colder Game
In this old children’s game, one player hides an object hides an object that other player seeks to find. Temperature words tell them if they are moving towards the object (getting warmer) or away from it (getting colder). In this case, the micro:bit radio function is used by the hider to give hints through the micro:bit to the seeker.
The code – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-F8D9wx81r8ESqhi_KUA5zCy3L_8oPsQ/view?usp=sharing
Advanced micro:bit Projects: Artificial Intelligence/Teachable Machine, the Data Logger Spoon Race, and micro:bit Pal Coded with Python
I love bringing physical computing into my classrooms:
Physical computing refers to the use of tangible, embedded microcontroller-based interactive systems that can sense the world around them and/or control outputs such as lights, displays and motors. Assembling the hardware elements of a physical computer and programming it with the desired behavior provides a creative and educational experience. A variety of physical computing devices are established in the market, including: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Circuit Playground, and the BBC micro:bit (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/physical-computing/)
. . . but as with all use of educational technologies, I believe that it should be used intentionally to assist learners in developing and expanding their content knowledge and life skills.
Standards Addressed
ISTE Standards for Students
- Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
- Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
- Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
- Create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
Next Generation Science Standards
- Analyze data from tests to determine similarities and differences among several design solutions to identify the best characteristics of each that can be combined into a new solution to better meet the criteria for success.
- Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.
Math Standards
- Measure angles in whole-number degrees using a protractor. Sketch angles of specified measure.
- Graph points on the coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.
Artificial Intelligence, the Teachable Machine, and micro:bits
Thanks, Cora Yang, for this!
The Data Logger Spoon Race with micro:bits and MakeCode
Thanks, Katie Henry and Jacqueline Russell, for this!
The micro:bit Python editor can also be used to code the data logger for the spoon race:
micro:bit Pal Coded with Python
Python is an excellent first text-based language to learn. Its instructions and syntax are based on natural language, making code easy to read, understand and modify. As well as being widely used in education, it’s used in industry, especially in the areas of data science and machine learning. Python is not just used by software developers, but also by people working in fields as diverse as medicine, physics and finance. Python on the BBC micro:bit brings the benefits of physical computing to students aged 11-14, learning programming fundamentals through text-based coding: immersive, creative experiences for students that help build engagement and knowledge (https://microbit.org/get-started/user-guide/python-editor/).
Here is a micro:bit pal coded with Python example that I will share with my students:
. . . and the code is:
Here are some student micro:bit pals coded with Python:
Workshop: Using Makey Makeys and micro:bits Across the Curriculum
This is an overview of my workshop at FETC (Future of Technology Education Conference).
Description from the Conference Program
Workshop Slides
Wakelet of Workshop Resources
Toy Making and Hacking Camp
Each summer, I teach a toy making and hacking camp for 3rd through 6th graders. It is three hours per day for five days. I enjoy offering “the public” similar activities as I do with my gifted students during the school year. I know there are rewards for the kids while engaging in hands-on/minds-on learning. I also get rewarded by observing students do activities I developed and/or found. I get such joy in witnessing:
- 100% engagement. All students were actively and joyfully engaged. It reinforced my belief that there is a human need to create. I wrote about this in The Magic of Making: The Human Need to Create.
- Their creativity. I was in awe about the directions they took with the activities; how much they added their selves to the base project.
- Their ability to create the project without direct instruction. About half of them were able to just fly with it without my assistance; by just studying my prototype.
- Their eyes light up when their projects worked as they envisioned them.
- Their interest in their peers’ projects.
- How valuable experiential learning is. I wrote about this in The Imperative of Experiential and Hands On Learning:
The Camp Projects
Through the five-day camp, I offered the campers the following activities:
- Stomp Rockets
- Gliders
- Galton Board
- Bead People
- Box Foosball
- Bobsleds
- Fingerboards
- Pizza Box Pinball Machines
- Toy Take Apart and Repurposing
There were 20 campers with a $400 budget equalling $20/camper for mostly consumable materials. About 1/3 of that was used to purchase used battery-operated toys for the final activity – toy take apart and repurposing.
The following slide deck provides an overview of the camp activities. I used it to present the activities to the campers.
Stomp Rockets
The materials and supplies list and the directions for making stomp rockets can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Stomp-Rockets-1/
Using stomp rockets as a first activity was a great way to start off the week. It was high impact, and the campers enjoyed watching how high they travel.
Foosball Games
The materials and supplies list included:
- Glue (any kind with work)
- 10 Clothespins
- A Shoebox (or a small box 4 ½ inches tall, 8 inches wide, and 13 inches long)
- 4 wooden Dowels
- A Ping Pong Ball or Toy Soccer Ball
- A Sharpie or Pen
- A Knife A Ruler
Directions for making it can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Shoebox-Foosball-Table-1/
The campers liked both making and playing the game. I was happy to show them how to use rulers to insure proper construction which integrated math directly into the activity. It was also fun to hear how they played the game with their families during the evening.
Galton Boards
The materials and supplies list included:
- Printable
- Cork or poster board
- Hot Glue
- Push Pins
- Craft sticks
- Round beads – 1/4″
Directions for this activity can be found at https://abakcus.com/diy/how-to-make-a-galton-board/
I like how Galton Boards directly incorporate math concepts, and how fun it is to watch the beads drop. This was a totally untested activity but want to give it a try. It wasn’t successful. I think a few campers liked it, but overall, the struggle making it didn’t equal the rewards.
Bead People
The materials and supplies were simply beads of various sizes, bead wire, and wire cutters.
Since I knew making the Galton Board would be a challenge for some of the campers, I offered them the choice to make bead people. There are pretty simple to make, but here are some directions – https://workshopsessayer.com/diy-bead-dolls/.
Most of the campers really liked making their bead people. A few weren’t quite successfully, so it follows that they didn’t enjoy it.
Paper Bobsleds and Bobsled Runs
The materials and supplies list included:
- 100 lb. cardstock – one or two pieces (plus straight track template [5 to 8 sheets] and curved track template [4 to 5 sheets] printed on the cardstock)
- Old double AA batteries (2)
- Optional – 3” wide packing tape (for tracks; to make them smoother)
- scissors
- hot glue
I created an Instructable tutorial which can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Paper-Bobsledding/
The campers seemed to enjoy making the bobsleds but making the tracks work correctly proved a bit difficult for them. I don’t believe I would use this activity with elementary-level students in the future
Fingerboards
Here are the directions I created for this activity:
As I predicted, at the end of the camp many of the campers expressed that this was their favorite camp activity.
Pizza Box Pinball Machines
I created an Instructable tutorial, Cardboard Pinball Machine Using a Pizza Box, Strawbees, and a Micro:bit, for this activity which includes the needed materials and directions, and can be found at https://www.instructables.com/Cardboard-Pinball-Machine-Using-a-Pizza-Box-Strawb/.
This was a fun and successful activity for most of the campers. It did require lots of iteration which was okay for the majority but proved too much for a few. Also, for some there wasn’t enough time to add the micro:bit scoreboard and servo-driven flipper.
Toy Take Apart and Repurposing
The materials include old battery operated handheld games and/or stuffed animals, various size screwdrivers, and low temp glue guns/glue.
I have done this activity on several occasions with my gifted students. See more at https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/toy-take-apart-and-hacking/ and https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2022/05/23/toy-take-apart-and-repurposing-a-creative-problem-solving-lesson/.
I always end this camp with this activity. The campers love taking apart the battery operated toys and creating new ones. They are told to make prototypes of new toys using the parts of from their (and their co-campers parts). As is typical, though, a few campers had some difficulty being creative with their new creations.
Gardening Program with SAGE Elementary Students
Our Title 1 school is lucky enough to have a decent size outdoor garden that is overseen by community volunteers. One of their goals is to teach our students about the garden.
Because of the that, I offered gardening as a possible elective for my GT (gifted and talented students). See Offering Electives to Elementary Students for more about why and how I offer electives to them. They joyfully selected gardening as one of them.
I also have the privilege of teaching my students multiple years. Along with a brief explanation of the activities for this elective, below is a video about the plants from the outdoor garden that the students created last school year, and one they created this year about our indoor hydroponic garden. (Note: Students are still in the process of composing the individual descriptions of the garden activities they did.)
Description of the Activities
We’ve been shaping our garden, and that comes with a lot of activities during spring and fall. These activities are all very fun. They included: garden class, plant anatomy and good eats. The garden class was very fun. It was basically reading out plant facts from a book. Plant anatomy was where they told us about the plant’s names and different parts.
Outdoor Garden
Our Salazar Green Garden has many diverse types of plants including peppers, tomatoes, rhubarb, mint, two different kinds of plum, peaches, and more! We donate to the Adelante food bank program, a way that Salazar can give back to the community.
Hydronic Garden
Students started a hydroponic garden and successfully grew lettuce, cilantro, spinach, and chives.
Healthy Eating
One of the goals of this program was to teach and have the students enjoy healthy foods.
Connecting School Standards to Gardening Resources
A school garden (however large or small) provides a meaningful context in which students can apply new academic concepts and skills. Whether they are graphing the temperature of their compost pile over time; reading a recipe to make fresh salsa; writing a story from the perspective of an ant; or presenting to a buddy class on the animals that visited their sunflower patch, the opportunities for children to practice traditional academic subjects in the garden are limitless! (Common Core and Next Generation Science in the Garden)
- Standards-Based Learning in a Garden https://www.edutopia.org/practice/garden-based-learning-engaging-students-their-environment
- Connecting the school garden to curriculum standards https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/connecting-the-school-garden-to-curriculum-standards
- From Seed to Plant https://www.monroe.edu/cms/lib/NY02216770/Centricity/Domain/141/fromseedtoplant12-8-15.pdf
Creating a Sustainable City (#SDG 11): A Collaboration Between NM Gifted Elementary Students and PA 10th Graders
During Spring, 2022, a student in my gifted education program suggested that they build a paper city. I loved the idea, suggested that they make a sustainable city, and gave them some additional resources to do so. It ended up being amazing (for more about this see Building a Sustainable City and Class Example of a Sustainable City).
Along with teaching these gifted elementary students (who I teach for multiple years), I teach graduate courses for Walden University. One of the courses is Innovative Curriculum. During the course, these graduate students are asked to develop a global networked curriculum where two groups from very diverse geographical locations, preferably a country different than one’s own, work to solve an authentic problem. Raelee Sweigart a former math teacher and now math coach at Reach Cyper Charter School, developed a curriculum about the two groups of high school students using geometry to create model sustainable housing. Of course, I went a little crazy as my elementary students just finished their sustainable city model. I suggested we use her curriculum to do a collaboration whereby her high school students from throughout Pennsylvania work with my gifted upper elementary students in Santa Fe, New Mexico (two very different geographical and cultural locations). My students wanted to rebuild and refine their city this year, and what a fantastic way for both groups to learn applied geometry. I am so excited. Below is the highlights of our collaboration. Thank you, Raelee!
Overview of the Project (developed by Raelee)
During one of the Innovative Curriculum modules, students are asked to develop a digital handout of the project to share with students. Here is the one created by Raelee and modified for our collaboration: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFX8rX_03g/Vm_nSf6_RkTxgjoV99gWmA/view.
Padlet Introductions
As Raelee suggested in her model project, the students introduced themselves using a Padlet. She included columns for video introductions as wells as ones for students to post images of their geographical locations. I later suggested that she add columns for students to post images of example sustainable building from their geographical locations.
Screencast of Our First Meeting
This is a snippet of our first Google Meet together, when the students from the two schools met each other and Raelee reviewed the project.
Tinkercad Tips
Our second session focused on Tinkercad tips as that is the tool the students are using to create their sustainable city structures. Here is an edited clips of this meeting:
Sustainability Presentation
- Recording: https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/c0nrrTVyOtf
- Slides: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFapgemzww/JlYdsK-WfLa19s0f5Yr4fQ/view
Support Handouts
The support documents for this project were found at I love Projects. Geometrocity, the City Made of Math http://digitaldivideandconquer.blogspot.com/2014/07/i-love-projects-geometrocity-city-made.html
10th Grade PA Students Teaching NM Elementary Students
The Pennsylvania students spent several of our meetings teaching the New Mexico students some geometry concepts related to 3D rendering and building construction.
Raelee created a Classkick, a formative assessment tool, for students to review geometry concepts – https://app.classkick.com/#/public/assignments/AYb6pKCnTQyMJFEKeSdp3w.
Working Collaboratively in Tinkercad to Design Sustainable Buildings
The group worked in Tinkercad, an online 3D modeling program that permits collaboration, to create their buildings. The New Mexican students worked with a scale of .25″/1′ in order for the buildings to work with their sustainable city model.
Making the Sustainable Buildings
Students in New Mexico will use a laser cutter to create the major parts of their sustainable buildings. In Pennsylvania, the buildings will be 3D printed for the students.
Final Slide Presentations
During our final session, student groups gave slide presentations. Below is their slide decks and oral presentations.
Upper Elementary NM SAGE Students’ Final Sustainable City
The New Mexico students using the buildings created through this project to build a sustainable city. The city was displayed in our school foyer. They explained it to several classes.
They used Canva to make poster to go along with their display:
Winter Holiday Display: A Great STREAM Project
I love celebrating the holidays and calendar events with my gifted students from my bilingual, Title 1 school. I ask them to make artifacts and displays that showcase both their talents and the holiday (see my blog posts about Dia de las Muertos and Pi Day for examples.) Not only are the projects fun, engaging, and exciting, they also provide opportunities for students to gain STEM/STEAM/STREAM knowledge and skills that address interdisciplinary standards. For this year, 2022, they created displays that included components for Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa. To do so, they . . .
- researched different components of the holidays, and created posters to go with the displays
- used art and engineering to make kinaras, gingerbread houses, and dreidels
- wired and used LEDs to light up their kinaras and gingerbread houses
- programmed micro:bits and Circuit Playgrounds to go with their displays
Introduction
I live in New Mexico. Knowledge of Hanukah and Kwanzaa is limited by our state population. so I began this project with holiday themed Kahoot quizzes (the kids love Kahoots). I think Kahoot quizzes are a great way to introduce new information to students. Here is a list of the ones I did with students:
- https://create.kahoot.it/share/winter-holidays/0a011bba-b79e-4044-9374-af7092aacc80
- https://create.kahoot.it/share/winter-holidays/332f63a4-e53d-45a1-8c87-c2328244c78d
- https://create.kahoot.it/share/winter-holidays-around-the-world/939312a6-cbca-4e4e-abdd-777433dc9846
During the quizzes, I visited websites to show students more information about the content being covered.
- Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being and that are basic to a particular topic.
Researching the Different Winter Holidays
This is is the R in STREAM which translates into reading and writing. “STREAM adds one more layer to STEM and STEAM: reading and wRiting. Advocates of STREAM see literacy as an essential part of a well-rounded curriculum, as it requires critical thinking as well as creativity. STREAM projects are similar to STEM or STEAM, but fold in the components of reading and writing” (STEM vs. STEAM vs. STREAM: What’s the Difference?).
After selecting from a list of holiday-related topics, students researched, selected key points, and found applicable images to create posters for the displays. Here are the posters they created (noting that we are a bilingual Spanish class so some of them are in Spanish):
- Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
- Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
- Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being and that are basic to a particular topic.
Hanukah Dreidels
Kathy Ceceri developed the Circuit Playground Dreidel – https://learn.adafruit.com/CPX-Mystery-Dreidel/overview. Kathy has them cut out their cardstock dreidels from a PDF. I created a template in Cricut so they could be cut out ahead of time. Here is a link to it https://design.cricut.com/landing/project-detail/6380fecebf31eaf51e587127. Due to the complexity of the code, students were provided with the one developed by Kathy.
Another kind of dreidel was made using CDs – see https://minds-in-bloom.com/make-dreidel-out-of-cd/.
Finally, students get to play the dreidel game (happening this coming week).
Standards Addressed
Next Generation Science Standards – Engineering
- Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
- Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity.
- Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.
Making Kinaras
“The kinara is a seven-branched candleholder used in Kwanzaa celebrations in the United States. During the week-long celebration of Kwanzaa, seven candles are placed in the kinara—three red on the left, three green on the right, and a single black candle in the center. The word kinara is a Swahili word that means candle holder. The seven candles represent the Seven Principles (or Nguzo Saba) of Kwanzaa. Red, green, and black are the symbolic colors of the holiday” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinara).
Students created the kinara by making tissue paper candle holders to make the kinara candles. See the Lighting section below on how they were lighted.
Standards Addressed
- Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity.
Making Gingerbread Houses
Making gingerbread houses is typically associated with Christmas time and it is a great activity for students. I purchased kits at deeply discounted websites like Five Below prior to the Christmas session. This means that the kits are quite old but they aren’t for eating, they are for display. To add another element of fun, I cut out the doors and filled them with Isomalt. This permitted students to add lights inside to micmic how a house might look like during Christmas (see next section on lighting).
Standards Addressed
Next Generation Science Standards – Engineering
- Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
- Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.
Lighting Up the Kwanzaa Kinaras and Gingerbread Houses
Students learned some basics of electrical circuits using blinking LEDs. For their Kwanzaa Kinaras, they made simple LED/3V Lithium battery connections – see https://youtu.be/pIDB56RYT5M on how to do this.
To light up the inside of the gingerbread houses, the students combined 3 pre-wired LEDs (resistor built in) and a 9v battery in a series circuit (there wasn’t enough power for more than 3 in the circuit). One of the pre-wired blinking lights was placed in each of the gingerbread houses. The basics of how to do this can be found via this tutorial – https://youtu.be/DcN0Xlw7nko.
During the process of making and testing their circuits, we discussed how circuits worked, polarity, and conductive/insulting materials. The following video can help explain electrical circuits to younger students – https://youtu.be/HOFp8bHTN30
Standards Addressed
Next Generation Science Standards – Energy
- Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
Lighting and Signage Using micro:bits
micro:bits were used to create signs wishing happy holidays. They were also used to light up Neopixel rings and strips.Here are some resources for the micro:bit component of the display:
- micro:bit Holiday Activities – https://microbit.org/news/2020-12-03/microbit-holiday-activities/
- Using Neopixels with the micro:bit – https://support.microbit.org/support/solutions/articles/19000130206-using-neopixels-with-the-micro-bit
- Sample Neopixel Makecode – https://makecode.microbit.org/72931-87952-73243-42587 and https://makecode.microbit.org/_VbyT1DT7uDKp
Standards Addressed
- Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals.
- Modify, remix, or incorporate portions of an existing program into one’s own work, to develop something new or add more advanced features.
Next Generation Science Standards – Energy
- Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
Math Connection
Although, I didn’t do so this year, I have included a math component to gingerbread house making in the past whereby students needed to learn about and calculate the perimeter and area of their creations (see Gingerbread House Making: A Fun and Engaging Cross-Curricular Lesson).
Dia de Muertos & Halloween Displays: A Meow Wolf-ish STREAM Lesson
I have the privilege of teaching gifted education in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Two unique characteristics of living and working here is (1) there is a strong Mexican population who have retained their beautiful culture – language, culture, food, and holiday, and (2) it is the birthplace of Meow Wolf, unique and immersive art installations with multimedia elements and a mysterious narrative throughout; whose mission is to inspire creativity in people’s lives through art, exploration, and play so that imagination will transform our worlds.
Because of these unique elements in my community, each year I ask the students to create Dia de los Muertos and/or Halloween story-driven and technology-enhanced displays which are put in the front foyers of my schools for the students and visitors to enjoy. They are project-based, high engagement (as students can draw on their individual strengths within their teams), and focus on student voice and choice. In other words, these projects become strong STREAM (Science, Technology, wRiting, Engineering, Art, Math)-based lessons which translates into being interdisciplinary. I believe all lessons should be interdisciplinary as I discuss in https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/all-lessons-should-be-interdisciplinary:
Standards Addressed
Due to the project’s cross disciplinary nature, standards were addressed from several disciplines:
Common Core State Standards – ELA
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3 – Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.6 – With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.10 – Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Science Standard
- NGSS: 4-PS3-2. Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.
GSS Engineering Standards
- 3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and
- constraints on materials, time, or cost.
- 3-5-ETS1-2. Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
ISTE Standards for Students
- Know and use a deliberate design process for generating ideas, testing theories, creating innovative artifacts or solving authentic problems.
- Develop, test and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
- Exhibit a tolerance for ambiguity, perseverance and the capacity to work with open-ended problems.
- Create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
National Core Arts Standards
- Anchor Standard #1. Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #2. Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
- Anchor Standard #3. Refine and complete artistic work.
National Standards in Gifted and Talented Education
- 1.1. Self-Understanding. Students with gifts and talents recognize their interests, strengths, and needs in cognitive, creative, social, emotional, and psychological areas.
- 1.5. Cognitive, Psychosocial, and Affective Growth. Students with gifts and talents demonstrate cognitive growth and psychosocial skills that support their talent development as a result of meaningful and challenging learning activities that address their unique characteristics and needs.
The Lesson
One of the schools where I teach (I teach at two schools) has a large Mexican (self-identifying term) population and as such, each grade has a bilingual class. My students from this school were asked to create stories and displays based on Dia de los Muertos.
The events were as follows:
- Write a Thematic Story
- Review Possible Projects for Story
- Create Artifacts and Display
Write a Story About Dia de los Muertos or Halloween
With the older students, grades 4 through 6, I reviewed the story arc and explained that they needed to include all of those elements within their stories. With the younger kids, grades 2 and 3, I talked about characters, setting, and plot and reinforced including these elements in their stories. There were 2 to 4 students per group, so they collaborated on their stories using Google Docs. What follows is one of the stories written in English and then translated into Spanish:
English Version
Spanish Version
Links to Other Stories
- The Chupacabre – 5th and 6th Graders: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rZEbwaanXQM8V83DbmQ9FmxAze0moZjSkICJLF5SaQw/edit?usp=sharing
- Story by 4th Graders: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XWX3tPK_eiLavBDyIY5HRhwa5YHvWvsVGVrm4Kr5at8/edit?usp=sharing
- The Haunted House – 2nd and 3rd Graders: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YFCodaGgBIDqp-DUx1Q1_DH9mrMWO3DPOHlr62jyr_E/edit?usp=sharing
- Story by 2nd Graders: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C5uLkTLJmBhE78xkyg01TnTgIdJQyueFacgvuIQnEss/edit?usp=sharing
Story as a Storyboard That Comic
One student requested and created his group’s story as a comic as his other two groups members wrote their story out on Google Docs. Here are a few of his cells.
The rest can be view at https://www.storyboardthat.com/portal/storyboards/cdamm/classroom-public/unknown-story3
Review Possible Projects for Story Display
For possible artifacts to create their story-driven displays and as a way to honor voice and choice, students could select from the following projects:
If interested in a specific project, I would either provide the interested student and/or group with a link to a tutorial or give a mini-lesson on it.
Create Artifacts and Display
Individual groups selected a combination of the following artifacts:
- micro:bit Characters
- Neopixels – micro:bit driven
- Servos – micro:bit driven
- Sugar Skulls
- Paper Circuits Skulls and Pumpkins
- Laser Cut Objects Out of Wood
- Cardboard Construction Kits
- Jack-O-Lanterns Lit by Circuit Playgrounds
- Hummingbird Bits for Servos and Lights
Here is a slideshow of the students’ creation efforts:
Personal Reflection
The joy both my students experience throughout the lesson is palatable. I love listening to their excitement as they develop their stories. I love watching their smiles as they create their elements for their stories. I love seeing their bodies shake with excitement when their displays are complete, and I love witnessing their pride when the other students excitedly approach and comment on their displays.
Because I have students in my gifted program throughout their elementary years, I love seeing their excitement when we begin this project each year. I always try to introduce some new possibilities for their display elements each year. For example, this year I introduced and taught Hummingbird Bits which I learned about during a PD workshop this past summer. In addition, since I blog about this project each year as a means to document both students’ and my learning, I can see my own progress. Here is the blog post from the first two years I did it – Halloween Wars: An Interdisciplinary Lesson with a STEM, STEAM, Maker Education Focus. During the first year, I provided students with cookies, ping pong balls, LED lights, gummy worms, candy skeletons – no physical computing. So, for me, it is great to see my own growth, too.
Beginning the School Year with “Who I Am” Projects
It’s the start of a new school year. I am often baffled why teachers (all levels including college) jump right into covering content when the students are in a state of disequilibrium . . . wondering about the other students, the teacher, and the classroom climate. As such, I begin my classes with experiential, personal connections activities. During the first days of class, the messages I want to give my students, through these activities, include:
- I want to see and get to know everyone of you as unique individuals. For more about this, see Teaching as a Human – Humane Process https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/teaching-as-a-human-humane-process/.
- Student voice and choice is important. Whenever possible, I will give you a choice and voice regarding our learning activities. For more about this, see Today’s Education Should Be About Giving Learners Voice and Choice https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/todays-education-should-be-about-giving-learners-voice-and-choice/.
- The learning activities throughout the school year will be hands-on/minds-on and project based. For more about this, see Increasing Engagement, Creativity, and Innovation with Minds-On/Hands-On Activities https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2021/02/09/increasing-engagement-creativity-and-innovation-with-minds-on-hands-on-activities.
- We are a learning community where assisting and learning from one another will be an expectation.
- Content will be interdisciplinary. This means our learning activities will combine several content areas: language arts, math, science, technology, art. For more about this, see All Lessons Should Be Interdisciplinary https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2019/01/13/all-lessons-should-be-interdisciplinary.
The Activities
Here are some of the activities I am doing with my students during the first weeks of school:
- Bio-Bags
- Toss and Talk Balls
- All About Me Posters
- Vision Statement
- Family Picture Book
- Kahoot Selfie
- Fake Instagram
- Mask of Symbols
- Comic – the Change I’d Like to See in the World
Time is built in for students to do a show and tell of activities completed. They can decide which activities they want to do and in what order. See the following punchcard for more about this.
Punchcards for Accountability
Students receive their own punchcard (see below – printed on cardstock). When they finish an activity (they can be completed in any order), they come to me to show me. I ask them: (1) Did you fully completed the activity? and (2) Do you believe it is of a quality you believe is your best work (to avoid the let’s get it done quickly mentality)? If they say “yes” to both questions, I give them the hole punch so they can punch the two holes related to that activity.
Activity Descriptions
Bio-Bags
To begin, students bring an old but sentimental t-shirt to class. The shirt is made into a tote bag (see https://www.instructables.com/No-Sew-T-Shirt-Tote-Bag-1/).
Students are then given the following directions (taken from BioBags: Linking Literature and Life):
Choose any written works that have been important to you or that you love (you must have at least five written works) and bring them to school. You might bring the first book you could read by yourself, a letter that you like to read over and over, a special recipe, a favorite trading card, etc. Please try to include a variety of written works. You will get to tell the class why each
of the works is special to you and how it has impacted your life. Examples include:
- A story or a book that you used to love listening to when you were younger
- First books you were able to read by yourself
- Hobbies- any written works you could share that fit with those hobbies (e.g., a program from a play, a scorecard, a trading card, a how-to book, directions for a favorite game)
- Any special letter or e-mail received
- Favorite song lyrics
- A diary or a journal
- Any special certificates or awards you’ve won
- A favorite dish recipe
- Any books that you love to read over and over
Toss and Talk Balls
For this activities, pairs of students receive a beach ball and a sharpie. They make Toss and Talk Ball, and then play it with their classmates.
Here is a list from which the students can choose: https://museumhack.com/list-icebreakers-questions/
Vision Statement
For this activity, students create a Vision Statement about themselves using Canva or Adobe Express. Directions for doing this using Canva and examples can be found at: https://our3lilbirds.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-to-make-one-page-profile-ellie-style.html. Note that this activity was designed for parents to create visions statements for their special needs children (as is seen by the poster to the left). I am adapting it for my students so that they create their own Vision Statement/Profile sheet using the same sections as this poster and populating them with their own information.
Vision Statement
The template:
Student Examples
LED Enhanced All About Me Posters
I like using the All About Me posters at the beginning of the school year as it lets me know a lot about the learners in a very short time. I also use them to decorate my classroom walls. Since I have been involved in maker education, I show the kids how to use LED lights creating circuits with copper tape. They use these materials to create LED-enhanced All About me Posters.
Kahoot Selfie
Most teachers and students these days know about Kahoot, a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes. For this All About Me activity, learners create their own Kahoot Selfie with 5 or more Kahoot quiz questions about themselves, each question having a four possible answers with only one of them being correct. Here is a template to help them with planning – https://kahoot.com/files/2017/07/kahoot_paper_template-1.pdf and an actual Student Selfie Kahoot that they can duplicate and edit with their own questions and answers (they will need their own account to do so).
Fake Instagram Account
Because my learners are elementary age, they don’t (or shouldn’t) have their own Instagram account. This activity allows them to create their own (fake) one. The blog post, Fake Instagram Template with Google Slides (FREE), describes the process for doing this. This template – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_gupBqIZBToioNFgbAb4nFVlsJgbdW5xneccto6pcFk/edit?usp=sharing – can be used by going under file to make a copy.
Here is my example:
Family Picture Book/ Cuadros de familia
This activity fits quite well with the Hispanic (the identifier used by the population with whom I work) heritage of the majority of my students. It begins by showing the students the following video:
They then use the following handout to create their books (taken from https://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/family-traditions-class-book):
A few adaptations that are used within my class are: (1) they can make the book as long as they choose, and (2) they can decide if they want to combine their books with other students in the class.
Mask Making
The full lesson for this activity can be found at Facing History’s What Aspects of Our Identities Do We Show to Others? which students are given access to work through independently:
Students will be making a mask that will be displayed in the classroom. The purpose of the mask is to answer the question, “Who am I?” To make their masks, students first have to decide how they want to present themselves to the class. Which aspects of their identities do they want to emphasize? Which aspects of their identities do they wish to conceal? Completing the Mask-making Preparation Worksheet can help students answer these questions before they begin crafting their masks. Before they begin, show students the materials they can use. In addition to markers and paper plates (or mask DIY which like Colorations® Cardstock Masks), old magazines are especially useful for this activity because students can cut out words and images. Also, inform students that they can decorate both the outside and the inside of the masks. They can use the outside to represent the aspects of their identities they openly show to the outside world and the inside to represent the more private aspects of their identities.
Here is the worksheet that goes along with this activity:
Comic Strip: A Change I’d Like to See in the World
For this activity, learners create a comic strip of at least 6 cells that describes a change they’d like to see in the world. I really like StoryboardThat and have an account for it so this is the platform my students use. Here is an example I found so learners can have an idea what to create:
Reflecting on the Activities
Once they successfully finish an activity, they are asked to reflect on it prior to going to the next activity. I use the blog platform, FanSchool (formally Kidblogs) to have them do so. FanSchool also has a direct connection for Flip (formally FlipGrid) so students who prefer to talk rather than write can do so. They show their project (inserting an image for writing, showing and telling for a Flip recording). During their reflections, they answer at least three of the following questions:
- What did you enjoy about the activity? What didn’t you enjoy?
- What did you learn about yourself?
- What were the most difficult parts of the activity? Why?
- What were the most satisfying parts of the activity?
- What positives can you take away from the activity?
- How have you been challenged during the activity?
- How do you feel about what you made? What parts of it do you particularly like? Dislike?
Standards Addressed
Common Core State Standards – ELA
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.6
With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.10
Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
21st Century Skills
THINK CREATIVELY
• Use a wide range of idea-creation techniques (such as brainstorming)
• Create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts)
REASON EFFECTIVELY
• Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis
• Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes
COMMUNICATE CLEARLY
• Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written, and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts)
• Utilize multiple media and technologies, and know how to judge their effectiveness a priority as well as assess their impact
MANAGE GOALS AND TIME
• Set goals with tangible and intangible success criteria
• Balance tactical (short-term) and strategic (long-term) goals
• Utilize time and manage workload efficiently
WORK INDEPENDENTLY
• Monitor, define, prioritize, and complete tasks without direct oversight
• Be self-directed learners
NAGC (Gifted Education) Standards
1.1. Self-Understanding. Students with gifts and talents recognize their interests, strengths, and needs in cognitive, creative, social, emotional, and psychological areas.
1.2. Self-Understanding. Students with gifts and talents demonstrate understanding of they learn and recognize the influences of their identities, cultures, beliefs, traditions, and values on their learning and behavior.
1.3. Self-Understanding. Students with gifts and talents demonstrate understanding of and respect for similarities and differences between themselves and their cognitive and chronological peer groups and others in the general population.
1.5. Cognitive, Psychosocial, and Affective Growth. Students with gifts and talents demonstrate cognitive growth and psychosocial skills that support their talent development as a result of meaningful and challenging learning activities that address their unique characteristics and needs.
3.2. Talent Development. Students with gifts and talents demonstrate growth in social and emotional and psychosocial skills necessary for achievement in their domain(s) of talent and/or areas of interest
Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D.
User Generated Education 